Game of Thrones begins....

[Habbaku]

I don't think I'd mind that at this point. Or at least I'm coming around to it. The novels have always been far deeper and more intricate, so where's the harm in enjoying GoT's spectacle?

[KRonn]

Great battle in this episode. It more than delivered expectations for me. It had me wondering if they'd all be wiped out, but I knew that the story couldn't go on if most lead characters and leadership had been killed off. Arya was the awesome, as I said before. She has skills from that training regime she went through. Yeah, it's over done perhaps but many factors in the story have some super natural aspects to them.

A few things that annoyed me. The Dothraki attacking alone with all their cavalry. They should have been kept back to outflank the enemy. Also, the trebuchets should have been inside the Winterfell walls, not in front of the Unsullied. But great fight scenes, I can see why it took so much time to choreograph it all together.

[KRonn]

This story line can go in a number of directions, obviously. I'm thinking that Jaime has a good chance at becoming the leader of the Lanisters if/when Cersei is defeated, though I feel sure she will be defeated. Just remains to be seen how things go, who is left standing. The southern households are still not in any alliance, right? They'll likely join against Cersei and her groups since they have some outstanding claims against her and her treachery. Theon's sister has gone back to the Iron Islands. She's the rightful heir and may be able to gather up some troops and ships, but the other guy who usurped her likely has most of the forces.

Also, some of the northern fiefdoms haven't committed and didn't join at Winterfell's defense. Also the Eyrie/Arie, however it's spelled. They haven't been seen yet and I think are nominally allied with the Starks.

No idea what to guess at who survives and/or becomes leader of Westeros - Dany or Jon.

[FunkMonk]

What I really enjoyed most in this episode was all the glorious shlock. Air-to-air dragon combat, ice zombies swarming over dragons, the Zombie King smirking after surviving dragon fire, zombies literally raining from the sky, our heroes standing atop a mountain of zombies. All top notch shlock. I felt like I was watching Army of Darkness 

[Josquius]

Oh. The night king surviving dragon fire is also an annoying cliche.

The theory of the night King as the last hero and bran as the evil other is interesting. For sure in the books there were lots of hints of dodginess with the children though these were not really there in the show.
Though it does seem that they need some episodes to wrap up the human stuff too.
One was I was thinking things might go is environmental with the others as a force of nature / global warming and petty human squabbles being irrelevant in the face of it. But nah. Stopped too easily and without need of everyone uniting.

Every enemy collapsing with their leader? Well, most of the zombies sure, but the other walkers too?

That was always the game plan.

Yes.
But stupid that it actually works that way.
There's no reason to believe the other walkers should behave like that.

[Grinning_Colossus]

The episode was crap and huge let-down after seven seasons of buildup for the Others/White Walkers/Winter/DEATH ITSELF.

Maybe it was a budget thing, but the good guys weirdly held back on the fire based defenses (flaming barriers, burning oil, what have you) that would have made the battle both cooler to look at and easier to see.

Also, it was anticlimactic af. I don't have a problem with Arya killing the Night King, per se, save for the questionable physics of her jump. But it happened prematurely and didn't involve enough of a sacrifice. If the same thing happened in the frozen ruins of King's Landing after half the continent had been overrun and most of the cast had died fighting the White Walkers, I'd be satisfied. Also, the sun should have set at the end of season 7 and not risen again until he died.

If I were a script doctor doing emergency life-saving surgery at this point, I'd look to Cersei's baby. I'd make it a stillbirth and have her command Qyburn to bing it back to life. Then its eyes turn blue. Then she decides to keep it anyway.

[The Minsky Moment]

There are plenty of stories that reach the climax and then have a denouement period, but three episodes (half the season) is too long for that. Remember back to the Umber household when "the Night King is sending a message" with the Umber kid and the circular spiral of limbs?  The NK is dead, so the message makes no sense unless it is a clue as to where he was headed and, in essence, a call for aid... the Eye, where he was created.  That message thing cannot be a red herring, can it?

"good guys" don't send messages by elaborately torturing chuildren and murdering everyone they meet to turn them into undead drones.  You don't save the village by destroying it,

He's got working hands, he can write a letter.

[Tamas]

I've reflected upon this episode. It sucked.

I didn't feel it to be bad while watching since I was waiting for something to happen. But didn't. None of the main characters died which is extremely cowardly seeing how two-thirds of them are just being dragged around now with the writers having no idea what to do with them.

And then the Great Evil turns out to be a run of the mill hivemind that's defeated by a single blow to the main guy.

Major disappointment.

[viper37]

I wonder if this will be the big deviation between the books and the tv series.  The books are, after all, A Song of Ice and Fire whereas the tv series is Game of Thrones.  A lot of the loose threads, hints, world building details, and background information have been left out of the tv series for one reason or another.  With the removal of more plot threads and streamlining of things, maybe they are more focused on the Iron Throne and the titular "Game" than the more broad and epic saga that is the Song of Ice and Fire that Martin is concerned with in the books.  Just as the Scouring of The Shire was left out of the LotR movies along with things like Tom Bombadil and other more widescope pieces, maybe this will be the end result here, too.  The storylines are built the same on the big details, but the finishes are different.

It occured to me that, maybe, this was G.R.R.'s vision all along too...

A song of Ice and Fire would mean the first threat to be dealt with is the Night King.  Then there's the fire... The Dragons, of course, but Cersei does like playing with fire too...

[viper37]

There are plenty of stories that reach the climax and then have a denouement period, but three episodes (half the season) is too long for that. Remember back to the Umber household when "the Night King is sending a message" with the Umber kid and the circular spiral of limbs?  The NK is dead, so the message makes no sense unless it is a clue as to where he was headed and, in essence, a call for aid... the Eye, where he was created.  That message thing cannot be a red herring, can it?

"good guys" don't send messages by elaborately torturing chuildren and murdering everyone they meet to turn them into undead drones.  You don't save the village by destroying it,

He's got working hands, he can write a letter.

He could be a medieval leader of the Green Party, fighting against global warming...

[grumbler]

"good guys" don't send messages by elaborately torturing chuildren and murdering everyone they meet to turn them into undead drones.

You've obviously never logged in to Facebook.

[crazy canuck]

There are plenty of stories that reach the climax and then have a denouement period, but three episodes (half the season) is too long for that. Remember back to the Umber household when "the Night King is sending a message" with the Umber kid and the circular spiral of limbs?  The NK is dead, so the message makes no sense unless it is a clue as to where he was headed and, in essence, a call for aid... the Eye, where he was created.  That message thing cannot be a red herring, can it?

"good guys" don't send messages by elaborately torturing chuildren and murdering everyone they meet to turn them into undead drones.  You don't save the village by destroying it,

He's got working hands, he can write a letter.

The Starks are the ones who helped the Greenseer.  Under this scenario the North, as the Greenseer's protector, needed to be destroyed to save the rest.

As an aside, a theme that didn't translate well in the show was the search for the horn that could bring down the wall and the significance of free men coming South.  Both are consistent with Grumbler's proposed resolution.

[Josephus]

Interesting theories, but I think they go beyond the scope of the TV series. I read the books, once, and can barely remember the Children of the Forest story arc, let alone those who've never read the books. So, no, i dont think it's going to go that way.

That said, there's something to Bran ... he's always been a bit of a self-centred prig; so maybe there's something to him being evil that will be played upon towards the end -- but not really developing the CotF and Greenseers story arcs.

[Zanza]

I found the barely existing Bran and the Night King confrontation underwhelming, just like the Targaryen reveal before. Story arcs that have started literally in the first minutes of the pilot episode just collapsing like this. There isn't even any talk or explanation on what Bran's role even is. Too bad, forgone narrative possibilities.

[crazy canuck]

I found the barely existing Bran and the Night King confrontation underwhelming, just like the Targaryen reveal before. Story arcs that have started literally in the first minutes of the pilot episode just collapsing like this. There isn't even any talk or explanation on what Bran's role even is. Too bad, forgone narrative possibilities.

It is what makes Grumbler's theory so appealing.  The alternative is very disappointing.